Taiwan
My uncle (mother's younger brother) is getting married, so I'm spending the next ~ two weeks in Taiwan. I haven't been here in about 6 years, so it's a little strange.
We left Thursday on a direct flight from EVA Air. This was my first time flying directly to Taiwan. The flight was surprisingly good. Although, my brother was unimpressed by the "not remotely top of the line" in-flight entertainment, I found being able to select your movies and TV programs and play games (even against other passengers) and such on your personal screen pretty novel still. We've always flown on Northwest which is stuck in the far past, apparently. I watched Vitus, played some games, and read some papers.
Arrived Friday night, went to my mother's older brother's place, pretty much fell asleep immediately.
Saturday we went swimming and to the "spa" (apparently a big pool with various water jets in different configurations, some hot tubs, and a steam room). Afterwards, breakfast and to Costco. John got contacts and I picked up Ponyo and a selection of six Harry Potter movies.
Afterwards, we visit some cousins and my mom's sister at/near National Taiwan University. This is my mother's alma mater. My youngest cousin is currently a student, and her brother recently graduated. It's kind of surreal to me how much older everybody is now, my youngest cousin, in particular, doesn't look anything like what I remember. The cousins have all learned English now, and especially since my father (who doesn't speak Chinese) is here, the language being spoken is a haphazard combination of Chinese, English, and sometimes Taiwanese (which I don't understand).
In the evening we went to this ridiculously fancy and expensive Japanese restaurant. The meal was ~60-70 dollars US a person. Bearing in mind that food here is *cheap*, probably about half as expensive as it would be in the US at least. I was pretty full after the 6th course and somehow there were still another 5 courses to stumble through.
This morning, after giving up on sleeping (blah jetlag), I watched Ponyo. First silently with English subtitles (didn't want to wake people up) and later with the Chinese dub and Chinese subtitles. It's mostly fairly simple language in it, so I might have been able to watch it silently with Chinese subtitles, but it's still somewhat unlikely. It's cute.
Plans for the day are unclear - Taipei 101 followed by...something. Subway tour. Taipei 101 is way taller than the rest of the city. It makes the other skyscrapers look diminutive. Later in the week we will head to my grandmother's place in Tainan, perhaps by the High Speed Rail. Taipei 101 and the High Speed Rail didn't exist last time I was here - there has been a grand infrastructure explosion or something recently.
I forgot my camera yesterday, but perhaps I'll have a chance to take pictures today.
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